Uvalde

Uvalde (Texas, USA), a town devastated by the tragedy at Robb Elementary School on 24 May 2022. And some 500 km from the massacre, the National Rifle Association was holding its convention.

After several self-congratulatory congratulations from the Uvalde authorities, came the contradictions and relentless accusations from the victims' families as the details of the police action were uncovered.

This massacre of defenceless children will change nothing in the conscience of American policy makers or the National Rifle Association. Barack Obama, during the tribute ceremony for the victims of Newtown (14/12/2012), wept with impotence as he called only for the traceability of guns and a ban on high-capacity magazines. He did not succeed. Nor will Biden, who will need a solid majority in Congress just to reduce the incessant tragedies, since to prevent them they would have to be banned once and for all. Thus, the gun debate is blocked by Republican congressmen despite the mass murders that occur day in and day out.

The American police are frequently accused of police brutality against arrested and handcuffed subjects, often resulting in fatal arrests. This was the case, among many others, of George Floyd. A black man suffocated by the knee of policeman Derek Chauvin, while exclaiming: "I can't breathe", after 9 long minutes of agony. This would provoke violent demonstrations all over the USA, spreading all over the world. Specifically in Texas, in 2020, these protests were violently put down by the police and for which she was accused of police violence.

Just a couple of weeks ago Payton Gendron, a white supremacist, shot and killed people in a Buffalo supermarket while they were shopping. Of the victims, 11 were black. And that makes four shootings since Uvalde, one at Saint Francis Hospital in Tusla (Oklahoma), another in the car park of Cornestone Church in Ames (Iowa), another in Philadelphia on Saturday 4 June and another in Tennessee on Sunday 5 June, with a total of 13 dead, not counting the wounded.

The Uvalde primary school, home to 90% Hispanic children, witnessed a cowardly massacre. The killer, who had chatted a few days earlier about his macabre intention, also had an hour to murder the children inside the classroom while the police stood outside expectantly. It was an interminable hour in which the children desperately called their parents and the emergency services to help them get out of this hell.

Outside Robb College, the police set up their security cordon and stood by, claiming it was a hostage situation, as the shooting had stopped. It looked like a fairground, lots of coloured lights, many officers in their Texan caps walking around without daring to save the children, others threatening parents with Tasser in hand who wanted to help their children. Some parents ended up handcuffed as they begged officers to intervene. In the midst of the chaos, some children managed to escape through windows. And while the Uvalde Police remained inactive, the killer continued his killing spree.

The subsequent testimonies of the parents, and especially the children, were terrifying. It took more than 40 minutes to enter the school. Some officers did so to get their own children to safety, according to various media reports. Many unknowns remain unanswered while parents, who should have been preparing for a well-deserved holiday, have been preparing for the funerals.

The National Rifle Association and its supporters are the masterminds behind all the massacres that have occurred and are yet to occur in the USA. This Association considers guns to be innocent, arguing that the responsibility lies with their owners who misuse them. And it advocates arming everyone, including teachers, something that is already happening in some states. This will sell more guns, more coffins and more flowers. They will even raise their Dow Jones stock prices, as well as taking the country back centuries to the Wild West. One challenging the other. The recent proposal by VOX supporters to liberalise arms in Spain shows the nature of this substratum. 

Like black holes, nothing and no one escapes the terror of frequent shootings. Hospitals and their patients, children's schools, colleges, universities, football grounds, churches and their parishioners or supermarkets. Shopping with the family could turn into a tragedy. Taking your children to school and keeping an eye on your phone in case you are warned that someone armed to the teeth is shooting at your children, is frankly a nightmare.

In a country like the USA, where there are more guns than citizens, more mass killings than any other, it leads one to think that the police in Uvalde are clumsy for not having learned anything from past sad experiences, as well as congenital cowards for not intervening immediately. This was acknowledged by one of the officers and this is how they are accused by the residents of Uvalde. They seem to be more effective against surrendered, unarmed, handcuffed, face down subjects.

The children were waiting to be rescued by the guardians of law and order. Guardians whom they imitated playing "cops and robbers" and whom they respected and admired, from their innocence, for their citizen security work. But in vain. Uvalde's police officers have failed children, parents and society as a whole, in the US and abroad.

As the investigation progresses, the procedural errors in the Uvalde officers' actions against the Robb School killer are shocking.